So, another joyful Chrismahanakwanzaka has passed, and I was lucky to spend it with family. There really is no place like home for the hollowdaze - the smell of burning credit cards as we open gifts, the faint sound of my arteries hardening as we enjoy family recipes, and the familiar taste of guilt as my mother tries to get me to go to midnight mass. I wouldn't have it any other way.

All too soon we have to rush back to our busy lives. I was prepared to leave the unHoly Land today, but biblical rains, flash flooding, high winds, and snow covered the majority of my route, so I settled in for another day of leftovers and Murder She Wrote. (My mother is an addict. She has seen every episode several times, but she seems unable to change the channel. Between the A&E Network's holiday marathon and the Biography Channel's six episodes per day I am developing a serious pathological hatred of Angela Lansbury.)

The meteorologists out here in Southern California are beside themselves. Four to six inches of rain in the L.A. basin is big news - like, 'plagues of Egypt' kind of big. Big enough, in fact, to break into regular programming. In the middle of a great episode of Lilo and Stitch, The Series (oh yeah, like you don't watch it...) a well-coifed young meat puppet named Bitsy appeared on the screen to introduce a live shot of cars sloshing through an intersection somewhere in Los Angeles. The on-the-scene voice-over was delivered by a breathless graduate of the Kent Brockman school of broadcasting.

"As you can see Bitsy, the water here is actually coming up OVER the hubcaps of the cars - incredible! One motorist had to be rescued when the lower door seal on her BMW failed, allowing water to rush into the floorboards, possibly ruining her Prada Neros. Law enforcement officials are warning against any unnecessary travel."

Naturally, no one at the local station had the common sense to realize that these reports might look foolish on a day when the lead story of every national news outlet is "Tsunamis kill 60,000 in Southeast Asia."

Clearly, I don't call it the unHoly Land for nothing.

I'll be on the road tomorrow, barring locusts, frogs, or rivers of blood. I will be taking a lengthy route, perhaps going as far south as Phoenix to avoid the bulk of the rain and snow. Ordinarily, I'd feel fine about soliciting prayers for my safe arival, but right now I'd prefer that you spread all your prayer juice on the survivors in Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, and everywhere else that got hit by the waves.

Should I fail to show up by New Years Eve, here are my instructions;

Since the "Cybernetic Afterlife Vessel" is not completed yet, the BCPs must begin the preparations for my funeral and the requisite 30 days of mourning. Something simple; a funeral pyre, surrounded by 40 dancing girls, maybe sacrifice a few white bulls... you know, the usual.

The Deacon Mark is to prepare and deliver a suitable eulogy.

The Artist Theolaureate is commissioned to design and build an impressive tomb for me. Something gothic and spooky...

The Scribe is to collect my works, both written and spoken, in a single volume. She is also to edit them so as to make me not look stupid.

She Who is All Things Good and Cute is immediately elevated from 'Inquisitor' to 'Sainted High Lord Inquisitor' (it's not easy being the platonic girlfriend of the dark pontiff).

Although it is up to the Flock to choose the new Black Pope, I consider the Apostle Ben to be the heir apparent.

Oh, I almost forgot - if Mother Tessa says something's a bad idea, you might want to listen to her.